Sun City residents impact Hardeeville election

Sunday

May 13, 2012 at 12:21 AM

Gwyneth J. Saunders

For the first time since the development began, Sun City Hilton Head residents have had a major impact on the outcome of a local election.

In the races for Hardeeville's mayor and two City Council seats, nearly half of the 638 votes cast were out of the Okatie precinct, which includes the neighborhoods of Sun City North, Hampton Pointe, Hearthstone Lakes and Courtney Bend.

Okatie voters threw their support behind Sun City resident Mike Sweeney, who sought re-election for a full four-year term after filling a vacancy in November. The Okatie precinct also backed Hilton Head Lakes resident Scott Ready in his bid for the second open City Council seat. Sweeney received 280 Okatie votes and Ready garnered 273 while incumbent Roy Powell finished with 13.

Hilton Head Lakes is part of the Hardeeville 1 precinct.

The final results, which were certified Thursday by the Hardeeville Municipal Election Commission, totaled 536 for Sweeney, 506 for Ready and 171 for Powell. Sweeney has been a resident of Sun City North for two years, Ready moved to Hilton Head Lakes in December and Powell has lived in Hardeeville for 36 years.

Okatie residents also swayed the mayoral election, choosing incumbent Mayor Bronco Bostick 3-to-1 over City Councilman Sal Arzillo. Both are longtime Hardeeville residents. Bostick received 216 votes against his opponent's 73. Bostick received a total of 477 votes and Arzillo received 201. This will be Bostick's second term; Arzillo was elected to council two years ago and has another two years on his term.

FROM THE WINNERS' CIRCLE

The winners will be sworn into office before the June 7 City Council meeting.

For Bostick, it's a time to continue some efforts and begin new ones.

"First of all, I'm going to make it easier to do business with the city, taking out a lot of the red tape that takes so long to get through," Bostick said. "I want to work on business license fees. I plan to lower fees as we get new businesses. We can't do it all at once, but as we get new businesses, we'll lower it. I'm also going to work on lowering taxes and the millage rate. We have something in our new budget that will help us bring the millage rate down."

Bostick plans to focus this next year on downtown redevelopment, revitalization and beautification.

"I also want to do an economic incentive policy for the city's businesses. I want to continue working on the library for the city of Hardeeville. Recreation is important but we don't have a good library facility to educate our children," he said. "I plan to continue improving the infrastructure in the city - new sidewalks and drainage, and continue working on growth and development."

For Sweeney, bringing in a business that will create jobs and income is at the top of his list.

"The one thing that I really want to do is I want to bring some type of industry, some small industry into Hardeeville that will generate some jobs and income for the people. The first thing I thought of was this WilcoHess. I want to get in touch with the lawyer in Hilton Head to see where we stand on it," Sweeney said. "As far as the Gateway project, that seems to be moving forward. I don't think they know when it's going to be shovel-ready and I don't think its going to happen overnight, but that will be another source of jobs.

"Then Bronco and I have often discussed lowering the taxes, lowering the millage rate. The other thing I want to do is I want to look at the people who work for the city, trying to get them some type of salary increase or rewarding them somehow because most of them are doing the job of two or three people and they're doing a great job," said Sweeney. "I feel very, very positive about the election. I've talked to Scott Ready, and he and I already see eye-to-eye on a lot of things."

Ready has plenty to learn to carry out his responsibilities.

"My plans right now are to get fully up to speed on the budget. I will be attending budget workshops, as well as having meetings with individuals in the city who are in leadership positions in order to get a clear perspective of their roles and what they're facing on a day-to-day basis," Ready said. "And also to share with them some of my vision in developing a working relationship.

"As I've said before, my management style is a very team-oriented, participatory type management. I am not a dictator. I prefer to work with individuals to make sure that the best is going to take place for the city of Hardeeville," he said.

READY'S ELECTION PATH

Ready was disqualified March 15 by the Hardeeville Municipal Election Commission because of an error on his candidate's Statement of Economic Interest form.

Ready submitted an appeal March 16 to the State Ethics Commission, stating among other things that there was conflict of interest with the election commission.

Joyce Meeks, chair of the election commission, is the mother-in-law of councilman Roy Powell.

If Ready had not run, there would have been no election for City Council and Sweeney and Powell would have been re-elected.

Ready's ethics complaint is expected on next week's State Ethics Commission meeting agenda.

COMMUNITY ADVOCATES

Powell said despite not being re-elected to a second term, he will continue to work for Hardeeville.

"It is what it is. The people spoke; it's not a problem," said Powell. "I moved on at about 10 p.m. after I got my signs up and went home. There are several issues that I've been working on and that I have been wanting answers to that I'm going to keep asking about."

Arzillo plans to finish this term and run again for City Council in two years.

"Obviously they were disappointing results. We think there was at least 45 percent turnout and to me that's disappointing. We should have had more than that," said Arzillo.

"Sun City on the other hand, Okatie, even without me being able to get in and talk to anybody, I think I still got 30 percent. I think that was something that could have been even better."

Arzillo said his plans are to continue to do what is right for Hardeeville. "Anything I said I was going to do I'm going to continue to do. Natural gas is coming into Hardeeville, and nothing's going to stop that because it's private money," he said. "My plan with economic development is to continue to bring it about in Hardeeville. We are working to lower the taxes and the millage rate, maybe up to a 6 million decrease."

VOTER REACTIONS

On the days following the elections, supporters were looking forward to the next four years.

Joyce Harding and her family moved into Hilton Head Lakes in December at about the same time as Ready and his family.

"I know Scott personally. He's a neighbor. I know his morals and ethics to be above reproach. He's the type of person you could hand $100 to and forget you gave it to him and he'd hand it back to you," Harding said the day after the elections. "I totally trust his judgment. I know we won't always agree on things but I know he will do the best he can for the city."

Sun City residents support Sweeney.

"I supported Mike because he brings a fresh approach to county government. He's thoroughly honest," said Dennis Brennan of Sun City North who has known Sweeney for 2 1/2 years. "He speaks his mind. He believes in representing not only Sun City North but all of Hardeeville. He brings people together. And I believe personally, after many conversations, he has the best interest of Hardeeville at heart."

Justin Patel, a Hardeeville businessman who owns two hotels and one gas station, said he felt the election results were a good sign for future growth.

"I feel that it turned out real good. I think Bostick has done a real great job getting things lined up," Patel said. "Everybody, including the other developers, were watching this race for mayor and pretty much everything was on hold."

Voter turnout has kept pace with the city's growth in the past four years. The 638 ballots cast represented about 45.5 percent of the 1,400 residents on the voter registration rolls. The last mayoral election in 2008 was decided by 330 voters out of about 650 registered residents or nearly 51 percent.

ELECTION RESULTS

Results were certified as official Thursday by the Municipal Election Commission.

MAYORAL RACE

Bostick 477, Arzillo 201

Hardeeville 1: Bostick 205, Arzillo 112

Hardeeville 2: Bostick 5, Arzillo 3

Okatie: Bostick 216, Arzillo 73

Absentee: Bostick 51, Arzillo 13

CITY COUNCIL RACES

Sweeney: 536

Ready: 506

Powell: 171

Hardeeville 1: Sweeney 199, Ready 176, Powell 146

Hardeeville 2: Sweeney 5, Ready 5, Powell 1

Okatie: Sweeney 280, Ready 273, Powell 13

Absentee: Sweeney 52, Ready 52, Powell 11

Write-in vote: Tom Johnson 1

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